Chapter 195:Trapped
Sparks flew from the red-hot iron as the hammer struck it repeatedly, some of them travelling far enough to strike the smith’s leather apron. The muscular, copper-skinned dwarf paused suddenly and raised his head. With a frown, he rested his hammer on the anvil and pulled down the face-wrap that kept his long, bushy beard out of the way. “Hey Rom, are you hearing that too?” Across the smithy, right next to a rack full of almost-finished swords, a dwarf so young his beard was barely more than a brown fuzz looked up from his work. The apprentice lifted the knife he was sharpening off the pedal-driven whetstone in front of him. Without the grinding noise, the smithy was much quieter, and he turned his head left and right as he listened. “Some kind of sizzling, yes?” he asked after a moment. He looked down, at the worn stone floor covered in filings. “Below?” “It’s coming from the pumps,” his master said, his expression darkening. “Oh,” Rom said in a small voice. The sweat that formed on his brow had nothing to do with the heat in the room. He knew there were pipes that conducted pressurized magma passing below. “It sounds almost like a boiling kettle,” the master smith continued, still frowning. He walked out the open front door, gesturing at his apprentice to follow. “Come, give me a hand here!” Rom obediently hurried after him. Outside, he found the old dwarf pulling at the ring attached to an iron hatch in the front yard’s floor. With combined efforts, they managed to pull it open. Warm, humid air blew into their faces from the square maintenance shaft. “Not good. Everything should be dry down there,” the smith growled over the now clearly audible sizzling and dripping noises. “Those weird tremors from earlier must have caused a leak somewhere.” He crouched and reached for the ladder. “Wait!” Rom called out. “I’ll go! I learned a spell to protect myself from the heat from my previous master,” he said. “Are you sure?” the older dwarf asked, a hint of worry in his bronze eyes as he looked at his apprentice. “Yes, it’s going to be safer for me than for you,” Rom said. “If there is boiling steam down there, I’ll merely get wet while you, well…” The smith stared at him for a moment before he nodded cleared the way. “If you insist. Don’t try to fix anything, just find the problem and report it to me. And be careful!” “Of course, boss.” The metal of the ladder felt warm under Rom’s hands as he descended into the narrow shaft. He never liked working in the maintenance tunnels, since they were tight and the air down there smelled stale, but he liked the idea of an explosion beneath the smithy even less. “I’m at the bottom now!” he shouted as soon as his feet touched solid ground on a four-way intersection. “The noise seems to be coming from tunnel three,” he added after a quick look at the painted signs. “Understood. Don’t take any risks,” came the answer from above. Rom walked towards the source of the sizzling and dripping noises, ducking his head to avoid bumping against the tunnel’s low ceiling. Thin clouds of steam wafted through the upper part of the corridor, slowly drifting his way. His imagination saw twisted, ghostly shapes wherever they glowed under the dim lights of the magical lanterns. Reassuringly, they condensed into mere water that dripped down on him wherever they brushed past cooler stone. Rom wiped the liquid off his brow. With his protection spell, the hot drizzle was more refreshing than annoying, and it cleared his thoughts. The old geezer above would already have been forced to stop at this point. Rock vibrated under his feet as he got closer to the pumps, and the steaming puddles rippled constantly. Where was all the water even coming from? To his senses, the surrounding stone felt solid and unbroken. Nevertheless, the source of the hissing noise was in front of him. Great gouts of steam and liquid were shooting from a small crack in the wall. He sucked in a sharp breath as he realised it wasn’t a gash at all. The water was appearing out of thin air, boiling into existence around one of the wards against evil on the local mana conduit. The complicated symbol had to be extremely hot if the liquid was turning into steam upon contact. He stared at the masterfully shaped medallion, tracing its clean and precise lines with his gaze. It was the ugliest thing he had ever seen in his life. With a snarl, he raised the pincer-shaped claw at the end of his right arm, eager to smash the offending ward to bits. Above the rune-inscribed terraces of the casting chamber, the air crackled and popped as it oscillated between various shades of blue and violet. Robed wizards stood in small groups between meandering inscriptions and freestanding pillars, frowning up at the protective dome and wrinkling their foreheads. Near the outer walls, dwarven soldiers shuffled their feet as they watched the magicians, occasionally glancing at their officers as if wishing for orders. On one of the cut-off pillars towering above the magical diagrams, Mengolin’s expression grew darker with every breath. “It’s still weakening! Hurry up with that node!” Raising a hand that glittered with jewel-encrusted rings, he pointed at a circle of wizards holding hands. They were activating one of the chamber’s still functional power nodes, coaxing mana from the intricate crystal patterns with their chanting. Light poured from the designs on the ground, growing in intensity until the spellcasting dwarfs were only visible as dark silhouettes surrounding the glow. “You reported that the Dark Empress was gone!” the accusing voice of Countess Zasod came from the crystal ball on the marble pedestal in front of him. “Well excuse me for assuming that his Grace’s plan worked when she disappeared from all magical forms of tracking!” the court wizard snapped in irritation. He currently had little time to spare for the last remaining noble above the rank of baron, who was technically in command of the city. “Stop! You are making things worse!” a female voice shouted from somewhere close, interrupting the Countess’ reply. Zasod’s brow furrowed in disapproval as she spotted Ambassador Camilla in her so-called uniform that was too revealing to be decent. The blonde fairy was hovering in the air a few metres past the railing, her beating wings humming loudly. “Explain, quickly!” Mengolin ordered. If Camilla had flown up here to interrupt them, she likely hadn’t done so on idle speculation alone. “Melissa down there-” she tilted her head towards her sisters, whose tall, slender silhouettes were unmistakable among the sturdier dwarfs, “says that the dome is fading faster every time you activate another of those mana nodes!” The countess and the court wizard exchanged a look of horrified comprehension. “Contaminated mana supply!” Mengolin blurted out. “The attack is in the mana!” Zasod said at the same time. The court wizard raised both hands over his head, his flowing robe fluttering from the rapid motion. He waved his fingers, and an attention-grabbing red flash lit up every corner of the chamber. Heads turned in his direction, some of them squinting from the glare. “Close the nodes! Do it now!” Mengolin shouted, amplifying his voice to thunderous levels. Camilla winced and covered her ringing ears. She lost a metre of altitude before she recovered from the noise, and even then, a faint vibration in her bones remained. The resonance didn’t fade. It grew unpleasantly in strength, making her bile rise, and she realised that it was already too late. The centre of the dome broke with a sound like shattering glass. The jagged hole rapidly increased in size, its edges fragmenting into fading splinters as it sped outwards in an expanding circle. At the same moment, the eight columns of green light stabbing towards the ceiling lost their colour. Clear pillars of icy water loomed in their place, standing still for a single moment before succumbing to gravity. The wizards around the nodes shrieked and shielded their faces as the freezing water crashed down on them. Within moments, the pressure hammered all of them to the ground, and the roaring flow swept them along as it cascaded onto the lower platforms. Mengolin gaped as a partially submerged sleeve turned a sickly yellow and its buttons expanded into a field of metallic scales. He could no longer tell where the garment ended and its wearer’s skin began. More of the drenched wizards changed, partially concealed by clouds of flying droplets and mist. Limbs bent at unnatural angles and silhouettes stretched and distorted into shapes that were only approximately dwarf-like. “Monsters! They are turning into monsters!” one of the soldiers gasped. By now, everyone had started shouting, pointing, and fleeing from the onrushing water. The few unassigned wizards were running about, trying to reach higher ground or casting protective spells. The fairies were flying above the flood and shooting pink blasts from their palms. Where they struck, the ground buckled and turned into tooth-shaped spikes. From his elevated position, Mengolin could see that they were trying to raise a semi-circular dam around the resting wounded. A slimy arm shot towards the flying girls like a frog's tongue, growing thinner as it elongated. With a wet slap, three boneless fingers wrapped all the way around a slender calf. The surprised fairy managed half of a startled shriek before the arm contracted and yanked her down, driving the breath from her lungs. Water fountained high into the air as she splashed down in front of the monster. "Mengolin! Mengolin, answer me!" Countess Zasod demanded. She was hard to understand with all the frightened shouting, splashing, and clanging that echoed through the room. He grabbed the crystal ball and ducked behind the pedestal, unwilling to wrest all of his attention away from the chaos below. Here was an opportunity to do something useful. "Yes, my Lady?" "Report! The wards are going crazy all over the place, and I need to know what's going on!" That, at least, was a question he could easily answer. "The casting chamber is no longer consuming most of the contaminated mana, so now it can reach the entire city. Also, it turns people into monsters." Something big and hairy hopped past his platform and dropped back out of sight. There was a thumping noise, and a wizard’s chanting turned into frightened screams. "What?” the countess shouted. “Did Keeper Mercury open a breach into the Hell Below?" "Sadly, I can't entirely exclude the possibility," he answered after a moment of thought. It would explain where all the evil energy was coming from. "She couldn't have dug into it, but she might have opened a portal. However, our wards should have stopped the corrupted magic from spreading much farther.” “The same wards she crushed on her way down?” That was a point he hadn’t considered. The realization felt like ice water running down his back, and for a moment, he feared he had been splashed. “My Lady, you must get yourself to safety while it's still possible! Try to reach a temple, or better yet, leave the city!" "What if the priests protected an expedition to shut down the portal instead?" she asked, moving while she talked. There was a strange patch of ice growing on a flower pot, which she gave a wide berth. A pair of clawed green hands reached for the edge of Mengolin's platform. “I would advise-” the court wizard paused to shoot a bolt of lighting at the grasping limbs. When the climber let go, he continued “- smashing her dungeon heart instead. If there really is a portal, she needs to power it somehow.” “I’ll consider your suggestion,” the Countess said. “May the Light keep you safe!” The crystal ball went dark. That was a tall order, Mengolin concluded as he took stock of his situation. Monsters were everywhere, stirring up the ankle-deep water as they moved towards the two dozen or so dwarfs who had climbed onto the higher platforms. Claws and multi-coloured blasts of magic rattled their shield wall, and it was only the air support from the three yelling, crying fairies that kept the swarming attackers at bay. Well, if he wanted to make it out of here, he had his work cut out for him. Ominous shadows crept over the bookshelves and the ornate desk in Torian’s office as his floating candles moved in predetermined patterns. Droplets of red wax rained down like blood, turning into fading mist before they could stain the crimson carpet. In the flickering candlelight, it almost looked as if the gargoyle statues climbing the towering backrest of his chair were moving. Torian himself sat behind the massive desk, the lower half of his face eclipsed by the glowing crystal ball in front of him. As the impressive centrepiece of the room, he exuded an aura of power, wisdom, and danger appropriate to his position. At least he liked to think so, because he had spent more time getting his office just right than he was willing to admit. To his mild annoyance, the Corruption had gotten to his gargoyles, and now they were too cute and curvy to be properly intimidating. To his much greater annoyance, the carefully crafted arrangement was completely wasted on visitors who insisted on rudely standing behind him and looking over his shoulders. Cathy leaned in closer, resting her weight on the left armrest of his chair and denting the wood with her armoured gauntlet. “How does staring at that,” she scowled at the scene in the crystal ball, “help us figure out what’s going on?” At first glance, it appeared as if the orb was displaying the sun. A small hill of ice glowed so brightly that the box-like building it had buried remained a dark and indistinct silhouette. An aquamarine tornado of energy swirled around its slopes, reaching up to the cave's ceiling and whipping debris across its walls. Jagged, crack-like inclusions of pure darkness spread outwards from the ice, pulsing and growing larger as they melded with the maelstrom. He wished she would just let him think in peace if she had nothing of value to contribute. “You have, of course, a better suggestion than watching the place we saw her last?” he asked, not bothering to hide his annoyance. “Send someone over there to find her!” the swordswoman demanded. “Completely pointless,” he answered immediately. “Even if we could safely teleport someone over there, they wouldn’t be able to do any better than directly scrying on her or using her dungeon as a link to locate her.” Both of those methods had failed, which raised some disturbing questions. They were almost infallible short of divine intervention, as far as he knew. “We are pretty sure she’s inside that building,” Cathy said, tapping the crystal ball where it showed the ice-covered boxy shape. “We could try talking to her through the walls!” “Provided we could somehow survive the raging torrent of magical energy around it,” he pointed out the huge, glaring flaw in her otherwise valid idea. “Besides, I’m becoming more and more convinced that everything is going exactly according to her plan.” “Excuse me, but you will have to explain that one to me,” Snyder's voice said from somewhere to the right of his desk. The redheaded acolyte was kneeling on the ground, pulling up the eyelid of a prone imp and waving a shining finger left and right in front of her huge black eyeball. The imp’s chest was rising and falling slowly, but her eye didn’t show as much as a single twitch in reaction to the light. “I fail to see how a complete loss of communications, comatose imps and inert traps – all without a single hint of warning and while we are besieged by a hostile army – could be part of some grand master plan,” Snyder elaborated. “Indeed,” Jadeite agreed. He stood to Torian’s left; arms crossed over his open jacket, and was looking at the warlock with a hint of curiosity. If there was anything satisfying about this situation, it was the fact the rest of the inner circle had been kept in the dark too. “Operational security,” he stated. “The Empress wanted to avoid even the possibility of there being a leak. Perhaps her plan leaves her vulnerable, which is why she is concealing her location.” Cathy and Jadeite exchanged a silent look, and the former shook her head. “What plan?” the swordswoman asked. “What do you think she’s doing?” Even if Mercury was keeping those two around for their power, rather than their brains, they should have been able to figure that out on their own. “Let’s see. There’s a huge whirlpool of evil magic below the city. Corrupted water appears everywhere and turns its denizens into monsters who bear a certain resemblance to the likes of Lishika, Mareki, or Umbra. Why, it almost looks as if chasing down the Duke was a convenient misdirection that let her reach a location from where she could easily corrupt the whole city!” Cathy returned Torian’s smug smile with an expression as if she had just sucked on a lemon and then covered her eyes with her hand. “That’s what everybody is going to assume, isn’t it?” she asked. “Well, it is rather obvious in hindsight,” Torian replied. “Nevertheless, she can’t be doing this on purpose,” Jadeite contradicted, his eyes reflecting the pale, bluish glare in the crystal ball. “It’s just too much power for her to control. Even my body couldn’t withstand channelling that much dark power for so long.” Torian glanced up at the curly-haired man, raising an eyebrow. “Excuse me? Are you seriously suggesting that something is beyond her Majesty’s capabilities just because you can’t do it?” “Yes. There’s no vast difference between her power and my own as long as she isn’t drawing on her treasury,” the dark general stated confidently. Preposterous. Torian didn’t scoff at the boast, but only because he didn’t dare anger Jadeite. To think that he considered himself a near equal of the Dark Empress! Then again, he had pulled off magical effects on a fairly absurd scale… “You think this is some kind of convenient accident?” the chief warlock drawled, waving his palm at the crystal ball. “It’s not convenient at all!” Cathy snapped. “We don’t even know for sure if she’s all right!” A roughly human-shaped rock mushroomed upwards from the carpet, right in front of Torian’s desk. It cracked and crumbled, revealing the muscular form of Mercury’s sister underneath the stone shell. “No change with the dungeon heart,” Tiger reported. “It’s still stuck mid-beat, growing neither brighter nor dimmer. No luck searching for,” her eyes briefly flicked towards Torian, “secret identity, either.” “Well, there you have it,” the chief warlock said. “Dungeon heart still active, imps still alive, and we aren’t being attacked by angry ghosts either. She’s fine.” “Doesn’t mean she’s not in trouble,” Cathy muttered. “And don’t remind me of the ghosts. By the way,” she leaned forward over Torian’s desk, steadying herself on its delicate surface with her gauntleted hands, and shouted towards the door “have you guys found out where the wraith-thing with the chains disappeared to yet?” Her call echoed in the hallway outside for a moment before hasty footsteps approached. A thin warlock with a gaunt face skidded to a halt in front of the doorway and grabbed onto its wood as his feet slipped on the smooth tiles. His shoes and legs, as well as half of his short tunic were splattered with thick, transparent slime. Torian recognised the disgusting gunk. The huge eyeballs that Empress Mercury had repurposed for ward-breaking duty weren’t dealing well with their increased power supply. Some were popping at random, which made the scrying chamber a place to avoid if you could. One of the reasons why everybody important had gathered in his office. “It’s hiding in a dark place, Commander,” the warlock reported, saluting. The motion transferred some of the slime from his hand to his forehead, and he grimaced. “Hey, you got here surprisingly fast,” Tiger praised him. She was sitting on the edge of Torian’s desk, something he grudgingly tolerated because he liked not being on fire. “Thank you, Princess, but I was already on my way,” the warlock said, bowing. “Bad news, I’m afraid. The besieging force is preparing for an attack.” “Damn it!” Cathy exclaimed, reaching for her helmet. “They know our defences are weakened. How many of them are moving?” she asked while striding towards the door. “All of them, Commander. Roughly three thousand dwarfs,” he reported. “That’s twice as many as last time,” Snyder whispered, his face pale. “They are holding nothing back, and with the dungeon heart gone into cardiac arrest…” “We will have no choice but to deal with them more forcefully,” Jadeite said in a cold tone of voice. “What a pity,” Torian said, his sarcasm concealing his worry. Fending off that many of the burrowing, hairy nuisances without Keeper support or traps would be difficult, at the very least. “Mercury isn’t going to like that,” Cathy disagreed, the corners of her lips moving downward. “Do you have a better idea?” Jadeite challenged. “I have one that might just work!” Tiger said as she slid off the desk and started bouncing on her tiptoes. “Cathy, fetch me your most useless goblin! No, better make it three instead! I’ll be right back!” The orange and black youma disappeared under a shell of dull stone, which crumbled to dust as she teleported away. The city gates of Salthalls stood wide open, and streams of dwarfs spilled out into the surrounding countryside while alarm bells rang ceaselessly. None of the sweat-drenched, red-faced and panting citizens had energy to spare to look at the sky, and so they didn’t spot the figure floating high above them. Tiger would have expected fleeing to involve more running, but the crowds below her were made up of people who were simply too exhausted to move quickly. Instead, they were walking at a brisk pace, keeping an eye on their surroundings and avoiding anything that looked wet. It was a good thing she had no intention to use the clogged-up streets. Now where was that well Mercury had used to enter the city? She quickly located the circular shaft and teleported inside, staying hidden from the dwarfs. The calm water below her reflected her orange-skinned form as she took a small crystal ball from her backpack. Right, the chambers her adopted sister had broken into were that way. She wasn’t going to teleport as she couldn’t be certain the dwarfs hadn’t replaced the wards Mercury had broken on her way in. She wasn’t going to dig either. Her earth-flavoured magic allowed her to part soil and rock alike. It was like pulling aside a curtain and closing it behind her, creating a small bubble that moved through the underground unimpeded. Water spurted into her moving bubble of space, splashing her in the face. She spluttered in surprise and held her breath on reflex. Oh, yes, there had been an aquifer in the way. Hurrying up, she managed to pass through before the liquid reached higher than her hips. What a great start. Finally, worked stone replaced the rock below her, and a ceiling peeled open under her. The water she brought along immediately dropped to the ground with a loud splash. So much for a stealthy entrance. Hopefully, with all the running noises and shouts coming from all around, nobody had heard her. She quickly checked her surroundings. Flickering lights, a little dim from the hoar frost that covered them, illuminated a stone chamber with stacks of wooden crates. One open door led to an empty corridor where a strangely static cloud of mist hovered above a sculpted sink. The other door opened to a large hallway, where a large humanoid frog was staring at her from behind one of the decorative pillars. She jumped in surprise and raised her hands, ready to summon a spell. The creature’s huge yellow eyes blinked once. It watched her for a few seconds and then walked away, its feet making slapping noises as it shambled deeper down the tunnel. All right. No need to defend herself. She was just going to start her search, then. Down the other passage. She had been sneaking around for several minutes when Cathy’s voice intruded in her head. “Tiger, are you in Salthalls? What are you doing?” '' “Looking for a big pool of evil water,” she summarised her plan.'' “What? You’ll mutate if you touch it!” Cathy’s mental voice shouted. “Nah, this definitely feels like home. Metallia-flavoured dark power,” she reassured her as she peeked around a statue. “Besides, I’ll be careful.” '' “You just stepped into a puddle,” Cathy replied, sounding half horrified and half exasperated.'' She looked down. Water rippled around her feet. Another drop dripped from the icicle on the ceiling as she inspected her foot. “So I did. See? It’s not doing anything to me. In fact...” She squatted down and dipped her finger into the cool liquid. “What are you doing? Stop! Don't!” Ignoring the swordswoman, she licked her finger clean. “Yep. As I thought, it’s just food to me.” '' “Are you crazy? Don’t take unnecessary risks like that!” Cathy paused. “You aren't planning to use that stuff on my goblins, are you?” Tiger tiptoed onwards, passing a few stairs down. There was a hostile pressure in the air. Had she ended up somewhere where the wards were still working? ''“Stop distracting me, I may be in a bit of trouble-” “Stop!” A low, commanding voice said behind her. “Gah!” Startled, she whirled around. A short figure wearing so many layers of rain clothing that it was almost impossible to tell what it looked like underneath was threatening her with a mace. It also had a spear strapped to its back. "You one of the sane ones?" the probably-dwarf asked in a gruff voice, keeping his weapon ready to strike. "Yes? I mean, I'm not going to attack you if you don't attack me first," Tiger answered tentatively, wondering how he had managed to get behind her in the first place. "Fair enough. Think you can distract the bunch of crazies camped outside while I sneak a group of people past?" "Huh?" she replied eloquently. She finally spotted the secret door in the wall behind the dwarf. It looked just like the masonry and stood open a few centimetres. Several pairs of eyes were watching her through the narrow gap. While she wasn’t looking, the dwarf had somehow gotten his hands on her shoulder and was now pushing her in the direction of a doorway. "Don't worry, they don't go after their own!" "Watch out, there's a whole bunch of monsters on the plaza beyond that door!" Cathy pointed out, not very helpfully in Tiger’s opinion. She sighed. Easier to go along with the flow than to cause a loud disturbance. "Fine, but at least give me directions to the nearest wine cellar." The dwarf chuckled. "Hah, you are still sane all right. Fine, just keep the monsters’ attention for a while!" She stumbled through a wide, arched doorway, and many inhuman heads turned to face her. Behind a stall that sold jewellery, a bearded creature with huge bat-like ears screeched, drawing the attention of the monsters that hadn’t spotted her yet. More mutants appeared from various shops, and an entire group of creatures sitting on the stairs around a semi-frozen fountain turned in unison, like a school of fish. She surveyed the marketplace and its occupants. It wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Dark Kingdom, actually. This, she knew how to handle. She stood tall and proud, clenching her fists as she flared the dark power coursing through her. The closest creatures took a step back, while those farther away ducked their heads and looked down. Some at the very back of the room discretely shuffled towards the exit. With a grin, she swept her gaze over the beings who tried to make themselves appear smaller. "Good, you guys can sense who's in charge! I need some stuff carried, and guess who's going to do the hard work?" Lines of dwarven soldiers advanced quickly through the streaming rain, crossing the surface terrain far faster than they could have dug their way into the dungeon. With the enemy Keeper unable to strike at them with her magic, they could simply walk over the outer defensive tunnels and preserve their strength. Or at least they thought so until an absolutely enormous lightning bolt dropped from the sky and struck the mountain’s flank. The advance faltered as the armoured figures blinked, momentarily blinded by the flash, and squinted at the spot where it had struck. A transparent, bubble-shaped dome covered the surprisingly undamaged impact point, protecting the two figures and the wine barrel within. Tiger looked down the slope at the rows of unsettled dwarfs and couldn’t help but admire Jadeite’s skill with illusions. That lightning bolt had certainly captured everyone’s attention and focused it on her. A sparkling bolt of pinkish light rose from the back of the enemy formation, tumbled through the air, and hit the shield with no more effect than the raindrops. She hoped his protection spells were just as good as his illusions and didn’t visibly react. In contrast, the absolutely rotund goblin at her side whimpered in fright and dropped to his knees. The green monster was so fat that he was almost round. Due to his weight, she couldn’t teleport him, the barrel, and another goblin, as she had originally planned. Still, roughly dwarf-shaped as he was, he would suffice for her demonstration. “Greetings, dwarfs!” she shouted, spreading her arms and throwing her cloak wide open. Better to get this done and over with before someone decided to rush her position. Below, helmeted heads jerked and looked around in surprise. The vampires in the scavenging room were successfully transmitting her words directly to the enemies’ brains, then. “I can’t help wonder if you really thought this attack through,” she continued. “By now, you must have learned of what’s happening at Salthalls!” An angry roar from many throats answered her. “Excellent. Now, you should be asking yourselves whether or not the Dark Empress can do at her seat of power what she can do in a distant dwarven city.” Pausing for dramatic effect, she raised a ladle and held it up for several seconds. “The answer is ‘yes’, obviously!” She dipped the ladle into the open barrel that had once held wine, but now held water from one of Salthalls’ deeper channels. With an over-exaggerated swing, she splashed the fat goblin with the ladle’s contents. Horrified gasps came from her audience as the green creature started growing until it was taller than Tiger. The large, triangular ears had turned into real horns, and an armoured shell covered the formerly flabby skin. Satisfied with the effect, the black-striped youma continued. "Oh, but, I can already tell what you are thinking. It’s a bluff. A trick. An illusion. She merely cast a spell on that goblin. She doesn’t have enough water to get all of you. To all of that, I have a simple answer: Observe!” Her index finger pointed upwards, towards the mountain’s peak. Up in the sky, beyond even the crenelations of the looming black tower, flew three of Mercury’s airships. Wind howled through the circular hole in the bottom of the airships' gondola, tearing at the robes of the chanting warlocks. The three mages stood in a triangular formation around the gaping opening, leaning on staves affixed just as tightly to the floor as their boots. Flames and arcane symbols moved in counter-rotating circles around the hole as their chanting intensified, reaching the final stages of the summoning ritual. As always when the spell was used on a submerged target, it didn’t just summon the intended person. Lishika appeared in the centre of the open hole, just above where the floor would have been. Around her was a cylinder of water that almost reached the cabin’s ceiling. It kept its shape for an instant even as it started dropping through the hole in the floor. The slender, long-tailed youma immersed in the column of water immediately reacted when she felt herself starting to fall. She disappeared with a flash of lightning, and the many cubic metres of contaminated water continued descending without her. Umbra and Mareki made their own escapes from their respective pillars of water, which plummeted from the other two airships. The many tons of liquid only partially dispersed as they dropped several hundred meters. Their impact still shook the ground and caused minor avalanches. A copse of young trees near an impact point was completely uprooted, and denser vegetation had its leaves ripped away. None of the water had been aimed directly at the dwarfs, but the spray drifting in the air and the water running down the mountain still threatened to get them if they continued on their current course. A wolf-sized blur darted out of the dripping underbrush and raced up a tree. Blue fur glistened wetly on spider-like legs as the creature ascended the trunk in defiance of gravity and disappeared among the branches. The bark moved where it had been touched, shivering and shuddering like jelly. Count Ornish shuddered too and put down his telescope. That little monster might have been a rabbit before the water had gotten to it, if the long ears were any indication. Stone-faced, he turned to the other dwarfs in the room. “It’s not a bluff.” “I could feel the impact even here,” his court wizard said, his skin the colour of chalk. “So much water. My Lord, it's going to seep underground. The sappers-” Ornish raised both hands. “I know. I know!” There was a metallic grinding noise, and it took him a moment to realise that it was coming from his clenching armoured fist. “We cannot win this,” he concluded. “But, my Lord!” Baron Sodnil protested. “Can’t we work around this? What if the priests make us protective talismans? Countess Zasod reports that the victims can regain their minds, if not their true shapes! Salthalls needs our help!” The count looked at him with regret. His old friend hadn’t been the same since his daughter had been captured by the Keeper. "Sodnil, the effects on our own troops are a secondary concern. There are eight thousand captive civilians in her dungeon. If we press on, we will be outnumbered nearly three to one." The dwarven commanders looked at each other with grim expressions. They all knew what a numbers disadvantage meant when attacking an entrenched enemy. "Signal the retreat," Count Ornish ordered, his mouth tasting like ashes. “Inform Countess Zasod that she is on her own.” Ami’s light spells had faded away over an hour ago, and the inside of the adamantine prison was dark. She was sitting on its floor, her pale face illuminated only by the shine of her computer’s display as she stared at the lines scrolling past. Finally, the dance of her fingers over the keyboard stopped, and she leaned back and rolled her shoulders. Her neck felt stiff from sitting still for so long, and she let out a long sigh. “Are you finding the wards not to your liking?” Duke Libasheshtan taunted her from the corner she had pushed him into so she had more space to work. As she swivelled her torso to face him, some of her screen’s brightness washed over the uncovered adamantine. The arcane patterns engraved into the bluish metal glittered like a sky full of stars as the light hit them. “They seem flawless, as far as I can tell,” she admitted in a resigned voice, secretly impressed by their design. They did some clever things to spatial dimensions to hide everything beyond the room from magical means of travel. Her Mercury computer could even provide mathematical proof that leaving required passing through the volume of space currently occupied by the adamantine walls. “I told you the Light gods are unsurpassed when it comes to defences,” the Duke said smugly. His attempts to needle her made her feel a little less guilty about keeping him stuck in the ice block. She cringed when she tried to imagine what standing still for so long felt like. “Are you ready to give up yet? Might as well kill yourself now if you are really worried about your magic making a mess outside,” he said. The melt water collecting underneath him indicated that he wouldn’t stay immobilized for much longer. She rose to her feet, feeling a prickling sensation as blood rushed back into her legs. “I’ll have a go at the adamantine first,” she informed him. “Hah! This will be entertaining. For me,” he said. “I’m looking forward to finding out what happens to a Keeper who tries to use holy magic.” Turning away from him, she refused to let his words intimidate her. On the ground, she could dimly make out the pattern she had scratched with the aid of the mace she had picked up. Careful not to disturb the lines, she stepped into one of the loops of the mana-gathering diagram and faced the wall. Mana that had collected over time within the bounds of the concentric circles flooded into her body. It felt like a pittance compared to what she was used to working with, but it should suffice for two spells. She broke into a cold sweat as she mentally reviewed the necessary formulas and motions. Shaping a spell from scratch, without the assistance of a dungeon heart, required precise motions and flawless concentration. She had exhaustive theoretical knowledge of what she needed to do, but lacked experience and enough mana to try again if she made a mistake. Goblins and imps could manage spellcasting, she reminded herself. It couldn’t be too difficult. Besides, she had carefully selected the simplest spells that would still work for her purposes. After a long, calming breath, she opened her eyes and drew the mana to her hands with determination. The act of forming a spell required enough of her concentration that she had no more time for self-doubt. Her fingertips traced glowing arcs in the air as she hurried to stabilise the structures defined by the words she was chanting. Without her dungeon heart taking care of details like that, everything felt far more difficult and unstable. Nevertheless, she managed to finish the spell and pointed with her arms straight at the adamantine wall. She aimed at the central rune of the prison’s warding scheme, almost touching it with her index and middle finger, and released the magic. A lance of brilliant white shot from the extended digits, and with a flash, searing heat radiated from the impact point. Yelping, she jerked her hand back and shook it to cool her burnt fingertips. She should have kept more distance instead of worrying about missing her target! Duke Libasheshtan was guffawing. “A classic case of much pain, no gain!” Blinking, she waited for her vision to recover from the brief flare. “I wouldn’t say that,” she disagreed. A red spot no larger than a fingernail glowed on the wall like a baleful eye. “You have hurt yourself completing the first step of a process you can’t finish. Congratulations. How’s that holy magic coming along, by the way?” “I have an idea that might work,” she answered in a quiet voice. She had no way to get true holy power with which to revitalise the adamantine, but she hoped she could substitute life energy. Its properties were close to holy power to begin with, and it had additional traits that made her optimistic. Injured dark gods could use it to heal, and it enabled her to use her magic when her body was drifting in the dark realm in a state of pseudo-death. There was a good chance it could do the same for a piece of not-quite-dead remnant of a divine being. As for getting some life energy, well, she could drain some from the Duke. She glanced over at him and then dismissed the idea. The adamantine would certainly reject energy stolen from an unwilling victim. She would have to use her own. She placed her uninjured hand on her collarbone and used her remaining mana to cast a life-draining spell. Her legs grew weak as she carefully drew a thread of softly glowing white light out of herself, and a wave of tiredness washed through her. She stumbled and leaned against the wall to remain standing, feeling as if she had just worked herself to exhaustion. “Wait. What did you just do?” Duke Libasheshtan asked, craning his neck sideways as far as he could in order to see the small light hovering over her palm better. She felt too woozy to answer him, so she focused on catching her breath and not falling over as she directed a tendril of energy at the red-hot spot. The heated metal sucked in the offered life energy greedily, devouring her small ball of light within seconds. “You can’t generate holy power, that’s just impossible! Unless-” The Duke’s wide-eyed expression briefly turned thoughtful before settling on exasperated disbelief. “Why would you carry a container full of holy power on your person? What could a Keeper possible need it for?” His gaze briefly focused on her outfit. “And where did you even-” His voice had grown a little higher-pitched, and she got the impression he would have thrown up his arms in frustration if the ice had let him. “No. Don’t answer any of that. Please. I still value my sanity.” He was shaking his head, black beard whipping left and right. “I’ll just be over here and take comfort in the fact that you can’t cheat at the last part, no matter how well prepared.” Too tired to shoot him even a half-hearted glare, she proceeded with the next step of the procedure. Blood and judgement. She didn’t want to touch the spot of searing hot metal, but if she let a drop of blood run down the wall then it should get there easily enough. Clenching her teeth and bracing herself for pain, she placed her burnt fingertips onto one of the sharper-angled engraved wards. With a quick sideways jerk, she ripped open the singed skin. It didn’t hurt as much as she had expected. A droplet of blood seeped from her index finger and left a dark trail as it trickled down the wall. She followed it with her eyes, taking note of the faint bluish shimmer it left in its wake. Was the adamantine already active and judging her? She should pass, if the Duke’s information was correct. Her intentions were good, and she had always tried to do the right thing. But would the adamantine see it the same way? She had become a Keeper to save her own life – admittedly without understanding the ramifications at the time. Likewise, she had started worshipping Metallia out of fear of what could happen if she didn’t. Would the adamantine be able to tell that she had done so on the advice of the Light, or would it only see that she had benefited from her association with a dark god? Worse, Metallia had rewarded her for services rendered. She didn’t know if the divine material considered circumstances. Could it even look at the past? If it could only evaluate her current state... Hope blossomed for a moment before she concluded that yes, it could at least look at everything she had done. It wouldn’t be able to figure out her intentions without accessing her mind, and that meant it could read her memories too. It would see every occasion when she had suppressed her conscience out of pragmatism. Cold sweat appeared on her brow as she worried about what it would think of her more questionable compromises. Such as carefully staying ignorant of her employees’ past crimes and atrocities because she needed the manpower. Still using imps as expendable slave labour and golem parts when she could no longer be entirely sure that this version stayed non-sapient. Injuring, scaring and imprisoning people who were in her way. Her throat went dry, and she gulped. There were also many other, lesser reasons for feeling guilty. Hiding the truth about being Sailor Mercury from her mother, for example. Not dedicating time to protecting her civilians from the effects of her dungeon’s Corruption. Accidentally ruining Cathy’s, Jered’s, Snyder’s and Camilla’s careers. None of those, however, even compared to her greatest regret. Good people had died unnecessarily while attacking her dungeon. She could have prevented the deaths of those poor dwarfs. Fighting had not been her only option. She could have surrendered and taken the Light’s standing offer of sanctuary and imprisonment. She dropped to her knees, hanging her head. In despair, she clenched her fists so hard that more blood spilled from her fingertips. Still, she clung to her belief that she had made the right choice. She simply couldn’t sacrifice her own freedom while her world was still threatened by Metallia. Her friends needed her. Everything she had learned about the Dark Kingdom suggested that the senshi were completely outmatched, and she needed to find a way back so she could support them. Glancing at the adamantine, she fervently hoped that it agreed with her reasoning. Otherwise, Earth would fall to Metallia, and this world would follow soon after. The faint flicker of blue along the blood trail faded out. “Well, that was quick.” the Duke drawled. “You failed, to nobody’s surprise,” he stated with certainty. “W-what?” She whipped her head around to stare at him, tears gathering in the corners of her wide-open eyes. “It’s obvious. If you can shrug off being confronted with your evil deeds so easily, then it’s clear you aren’t capable of feeling guilt and regret like a truly good person.” “W-wait, you mean this happens to everyone?” she asked, blinking rapidly. A little bit of warning about the adamantine making her relive the parts of her life she was least proud of would have been appreciated. “No. The lack of lamentations, tears, and self-loathing is unusual. Even the most virtuous dwarfs take some time to recover from the experience.” He snorted. “Someone with a working conscience who had committed even a fraction of a Keeper’s crimes would remain incoherent for weeks.” “I see,” she stated softly as her racing heart slowed down somewhat. The guilt had felt horrible – still did – but it wasn’t crippling. She also didn’t think she had already become a cold-hearted monster. She simply could justify most of her actions to herself, which might have been enough to shield her. “So,” she began after a moment, “is there some visual clue when someone passes the judgement, or did you simply draw conclusions from observing me?” “The latter,” the Duke replied. “Not that the outcome was ever in doubt.” He didn’t know for sure! She looked at the ground. With the help of the reddish glow from the heated metal, she quickly located the mace she had placed on the floor near the heated spot. Metal screeched as she reached for the handle and pulled the weapon closer, dragging its spiky head over the floor. The Duke winced at the noise and tracked her movements with his eyes. “Now what are you planning to do with that?” “I’ll experimentally verify your conclusion,” she explained as she propped the mace’s head onto the ground and used its long handle to pull herself to her feet. Leaning against the wall, she managed to lift the weapon despite her protesting muscles. She felt so weak with some of her life energy missing. He relaxed. “You’ll merely be making a fool out of yourself.” “We shall see,” she said as she swung the mace. With a loud clang, it slammed into the adamantine wall and bounced off, almost tearing itself from her grip. “Not a single scratch!” the Duke laughed. “Told you so!” She grimaced at the impact point. “I missed!” she protested. “The heated spot is tiny!” “You are delusional,” the dwarf scoffed. “Delusional but entertaining.” She ignored his unhelpful commentary and brought the weapon closer to the red-hot area. If she couldn’t aim properly with her current lack of strength, then she would use her body weight to push one of the mace’s spikes through the softened metal. Groaning with the effort, she raised the weapon until she held it horizontally and rested it against the red-hot spot. The strain on her arms lowered when she leaned on the handle, pressing the weapon’s head harder against the red-hot spot. With most of her weight resting on the mace, it suddenly slid to the side and slipped from her fingers. Off balance, she toppled straight towards the spot of heated metal. She yelped and threw herself to the side, instinctively averting her face from the radiating heat. Her shoulder bumped against the wall, and the smell of burnt hair wafted through the room as she slid to the ground. Behind her, the Duke was laughing so hard that the ice trapping him vibrated from the noise. Was he right and the adamantine was still invulnerable? Breathing hard, she squinted at its red glow. Her breath hitched. “Look! LOOK!” she shouted with so much excitement in her voice that the Duke stopped laughing and shot her a puzzled look. His gaze followed her extended arm and index finger towards the heated adamantine. It took him a moment to notice that she was pointing at a thread of molten metal. Like syrup sticking to the mace, it had stretched out into a thin filament when the weapon fell. He stared at the dangling string of adamantine, his eyebrows creeping upwards until they disappeared underneath the rim of his helmet and made his bulging eyes appear even wider. His jaw dropped, and a strange noise escaped his throat. “It worked!” she cheered, her tiredness briefly washed away by a surge of relief. The divine material was allowing her to shape it, even if doing so was difficult. “It can’t be! I- Impossible! You are a Keeper!” the Duke protested. “It cannot- Even I couldn’t- How? Why? Worthy? But she’s a Keeper! A Keeper! I don’t- Never wrong- but, but, but, Keeper!” While his words devolved into even more incoherent babbling, Ami sat up and recovered her fallen mace, ready to attack the molten adamantine with renewed vigour. It was sticky, so she should be able to scrape bits away until there was a hole. Using the weapon’s long handle, she could reach the molten spot even while seated. In fact, she could preserve her strength by propping it up against her knees and rolling it up and down a little to achieve a drilling effect. True to her prediction, the sticky adamantine clung to the points of her improvised tool, accumulating in larger and larger globs on the spikes as she scratched at the heated metal. Her hands suddenly encountered resistance. The mace was stuck, impossible to budge. Mana flooded into her empty reserves, feeling like ice cubes moving underneath her skin, and she gasped in surprise. Understanding struck her a split-second later. She had made a hole in the prison through which the magic could flood in. Her eyes shone a bright crimson, making the ward-engraved patch of revealed adamantine in front of her look violet and confirming that she was a Keeper again. Far away, her dungeon heart sluggishly awakened from slumber. Her awareness was limited to its immediate surroundings, as everything further than a few metres away remained hidden behind a curtain of darkness. Tile by tile, this darkness receded, as if she was rapidly claiming the territory. The wave of expanding awareness reached the first intersection and rushed down each of the three outgoing tunnels simultaneously. Everything it passed provided information. The state of the walls, the clicking of traps rearming themselves, the amount of water within the pipes within the wall. Another intersection, and yet another. The rush of knowledge sped up exponentially. The amount of gold and gems in her treasury. The number of withered plants in one of the farms. An imp, rubbing her eyes in confusion. More intersections. Ami grabbed her head in discomfort as the flashes of knowledge came faster and faster, too quickly for her to process them. They produced a sensation like pins and needles, multiplied by the size of her dungeon. Running goblins. Armoury. Swords, daggers, clubs. Half-finished reaperbot. Frost patterns. Wandering civilian. Right angles. Aquamarine tiles. Dripping water. Trolls. Beakers. Cables. Mixed patrol. Intruders. Gems. Dragon. Tall ceilings, right angles. Pools and water. Warlocks. Slender pillars. Chatting dark elves. Intersectio- The flood of information became too great for her tired mind to handle. Already weakened from draining her own life energy, she slowly toppled forward from her seated position, unconscious. Category:Story Chapter